Changing the trajectory of your musical career is always a scary decision. But when you pick Ghastly as your stage name, you're pretty much expected to be brave, right? That’s surely the case with David Lee Crow, who grew up on a goat farm in Arizona and got his start in a metal band before deciding to relocate to LA and make a fresh start as a bass producer with a knack for hard-hitting club bangers. After getting a new stage name and much-needed push by none other than Skrillex, Ghastly began his quest of winning the hearts, legs and fists of the club goers all over the place. We arranged a Skype session with the busy producer in the midst of his tour and talked about him not borrowing his name from a Pokemon, goat and metal screams and rubbing sheep on his head among other important topics.

How are you today, Ghastly?

I stayed up all night, so the sun’s on my balcony in LA is extra bright today.

Did you party too much last night?

Nah, I was working on music.

So I see you went blonde. Any big story behind this decision?

Not really. It’s the same reason I used to have a nose piercing. The same reason I get a tattoo. The same reason I do anything. I just change once in a while. It’s just a thing. And I’ll change again soon.

Well, your fans seem to like it, there are a lot of comments on your socials.

Yeah, it can always be worse. People may hate it.

I heard that you’re currently working on an album. What can you tell us about it?

It’s gonna be an EP actually, but there’s still a possibility we may package it differently. It may not go out as a collective body of work and go separately. These songs are definitely gonna be different from what people are expecting from me. A lot of people know me for this bassy housey stuff. I’m moving away from that and focusing on more musical pieces. True records that have meaning behind them instead of just nonsense. I’m really excited about this. I mean I stayed up all night last night working on it.

Any collaborations you got lined up?

There’s a possibility for it right now, but nothing that I can confirm.

You’re also on the road quite a lot. So I demand some wild tour stories to make up for all the delays we’ve had for this interview! It’s fair, right?

Haha. Let’s see… Oh man. It’s usually a giant blur that I can’t even remember.

I suppose you do get crazy after your show is done and don’t go to hotel to chill?

It changes. I definitely used to party way more than I do now. Of couese I drink and I smoke pot, but I don’t treat every single show like ‘All right, let’s go fucking party!.' If I did this I would always be recovering in the morning instead of moving forward. When I get fucked up now, it’s gotta be a very very special night.

Like what was the deal with you wearing a sheep on your head in Canada? Was it a real sheep?

No, it was a stuffed sheep that they’ve kept for years and they take it to shows to rub it on people. I didn’t know that when I put it on my head.

A used sheep!

A used sheep, yeah, but it was funny.

Let’s go back to the beginning of your career, before people started giving you free sheep. How did you get your start in DJing and producing?

I started recording my own music when I was 16 on my friend’s guitar. Coming from a metal band, I never really considered a solo career because the band was doing decent. But then the band started to fall apart because that’s what bands do 90% at the time. And I started realizing either I had to go solo or give up on a musical career, because I wasn’t gonna start another band. I had already flushed all of my money into the band and it sunk. I had to start from scratch and that’s exactly what I did. So I sold everything and moved to LA and decided I’d start producing and give music a real shot by going to a place where it seemed the most possible. First couple of years—total struggle, day job after day job, fired from all of them. All terrible jobs from being a host at a restaurant to a door-to-door sales in a tuxedo. There were a couple that I liked though, like when I was an afterschool camp counselor and a teacher, hanging out with the kids was fun, but that doesn’t really pay much.

Slowly but surely I kept on pushing and making more music and started to surround myself with the people who were equally motivated. Suddenly I got very inspired and started making the best music that I’ve ever written and people started taking notice.

Is there anyone you can call a mentor. Like you’ve recently been featured on Diplo and Friends’ mix…

I would say Skrillex has been the biggest influence for me as an artist, because he’s the one who gave me the big push. He actually signed my first record as Ghastly in the first couple of months that I started the project. I thought that this was my big in and then my creative direction veered off the road and then I came back around and wrote “Crank It” with Mija. When Skrillex heard that, he pushed it to the most valuable level by playing it and just really shinning a light into my direction. That was a great opportunity and I took the best use of that opportunity.

Do you have any catch phrase you use when talking about your sound?

Ah…No, I just make the noise. Some people have hashtags for their sound, but I just let people call it whatever they want.

You were a lead singer in a metal band The Irish Front. But did you ever think about making a mix of metal and electro?

We actually got our big jump off Myspace when it was still going…

We were so blessed to book a tour just through Myspace messages. I definitely incorporated my vocals into a couple of Ghastly tracks. There’s a song called “Fuck The System” I made about a year and a half ago with Sullivan King that is very exemplary of that exact thing. It’s got my vocals. I recorded it back when I was working at the farm making goat cheese, and I just had an idea one day and set up my phone and made a metal scream in the cheese room ‘cause it was very echoey. I didn’t know what I was gonna do with the recording at the time and some time later it came handy. There are guitars in that track and screaming vocals and heavy drums, it reminds of metal the most of all of my songs.

Did you ever think about using a goat scream?

Yeah, I have actually. My dad keeps saying, "C’mon, you gotta use it, these goats make crazy sounds, if you sample one of these goats you can make your next banger."

Do you know that there’s a Pokemon named Gastly? Did it influence your stage name choice in any way? Even though it's spelled differently.

I never really intended for it to be something that I’m associated with. In fact I didn’t think that it was going to be. I always thought that I would struggle with getting past that name when people Google me. If people wanna associate me with something from their childhood, that’s fine by me. I still love and remember it from my childhood, I remember growing up and watching it everyday and trading it at school.

Next serious question. Would you want to have a Pokemon though? Or to be a Pokemon?

I think I’m satisfied with my relationships with the one that I’m currently associated with. I like Gastly because he’s just a weirdo. A scary weirdo. That’s me.

You have quite a following on social media. Do you read and answer your fans’ comments?

I put the most effort on Twitter and Snapchat; I’m very responsive through these channels. As for Facebook, that’s a little bit too hectic. I do read the comments. I don’t always respond but sometimes I do when fans ask me a question about production. I can’t answer all of them but I try to as much as I can.

Tell me about Mija, your frequent collaborator. Do you still work together?

We see each other around. There’s definitely a possibility for us working together again in the future, but right now my style is a little bit more aggressive than what she’s been making lately. Her music’s been a lot more beautiful lately. We’re still very good friends, but we have our tours schedules. It’s hard to find time to collaborate with people these days, especially when you’re all starting to take off. There are very few moments after that when you all meet. We used to just hang out, all of us, me, Amber (Mija – author) and a group of other people. We used to just be homies together and then we all started picking up and now we only see each other at a festival or in Miami, etc. It’s a great feeling but kinda sad at the same time, because of how simple everything was before. But that’s what we worked for, I don’t regret it.

Your Soundcloud states that it’s cool for people to send you demos. Do you go through all the submissions? Anyone you want to work already?

Oh yeah, I go through those all the time, and I’ve found some incredible music doing so from people who I’ve never heard of. I like to use my artistry as a channel to give these people a platform to be noticed. If I like someone’s work, I play their music at my sets and give them exposure. I remember when that’s all I could ever ask for is to just have my song played by someone who people respect. That’s a very difficult task in the beginning. Getting anyone to wanna work with you when no one knows you is by far the hardest part, by far.

What are you most excited about this year?

I’m very excited about touring and recording but also about seeing how my fanbase is becoming more of a cult movement with people who are committed and believe in what I stand for and what I’m trying to represent. I’m super excited to see the kind of people that are appealed to what I’ve been doing, because they’re all very good people. I see that through what they say and how they act and how they treat each other. It’s really dope to see that my music could bring good people together and create good situations, because that’s all I ever really really wanted from music. There’s nothing like creating a soundtrack to someone’s memory or having someone say, "Yo, I was gonna give up on my dream and then I heard this and now I’m back at it full swing." I know that feeling!

That’s awesome, thanks for the talk.

You welcome. Now I’m gonna crash out and probably eat five bowls of cereal.

Well, you deserve it.